PREHISTORIC EGYPT (as of approx 1900) (14)

In any case, at the dawn of connected Egyptian history, we find two main centres of civilization in Egypt, Heliopolis and Buto in the Delta in the North, and Edfu and Hierakonpolis in the South. Here were established at the beginning of the Chalcolithic stage of culture, we may say, two kingdoms, of Lower and Upper Egypt, which were eventually united by the superior arms of the kings of Upper Egypt, who imposed their rule upon the North but at the same time removed their capital from there. The dualism of Buto and Hierakonpolis really lasted throughout Egyptian history. The king was always called "Lord of the Two Lands," and wore the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt; the snakes of Buto and Nekhebet (the goddess of Nekheb, opposite Nekhen or Hierakonpolis) always typified the united kingdom. This dualism of course often led to actual division and reversion to the predynastic order of things, as, for instance, in the time of the XXIst Dynasty.

It might well seem that both the impulses to culture development in the North and South came from Semitic inspiration, and that it was to the Semitic invaders in North and South that the founding of the two kingdoms was due. This may be true to some extent, but it is at the same
time very probable that the first development of political culture at Hierakonpolis was really of pre-Semitic origin. The kingdom of Buto, since its capital is situated so near to the seacoast, may have owed its origin to oversea Mediterranean connections. There is much in the political constitution of later Egypt which seems to have been of indigenous and pre-Semitic origin. Especially does this seem to be so in the case of the division and organization of the country into nomes. It is obvious that so soon as agriculture began to be practised on a large scale, boundaries would be formed, and in the unique conditions of Egypt, where all boundaries disappear beneath the inundation every year, it is evident that the fixing of division-lines as permanently as possible by means of landmarks was early essayed. We can therefore with
confidence assign the formation of the nomes to very early times. Now the names of the nomes and the symbols or emblems by which they were distinguished are of very great interest in this connection. They are nearly all figures of the magic animals of the primitive religion, and fetish emblems of the older deities. The names are, in fact, those of the territories of the Neolithic Egyptian tribes, and their emblems are those of the protecting tribal demons. The political divisions of the country seem, then, to be of extremely ancient origin, and if the nomes go back to a time before the Semitic invasions, so may also the kingdoms of the South and North.

Of these predynastic kingdoms we know very little, except from legendary sources. The Northerners who were conquered by Aha, Narmer, and Khesekhehiui do not look very much like Egyptians, but rather resemble Semites or Libyans. On the "Stele of Palermo," a chronicle of early kings inscribed in the period of the Vth Dynasty, we have a list of early kings of the North, Seka, Desau, Tiu, Tesh, Nihab, Uatjentj, Mekhe. The names are primitive in form. We know nothing more about them. Mr. C. T. Currelly attempted to excavate at Buto, in order to find traces of the predynastic kingdom, but owing to the infiltration of water his efforts were unsuccessful. It is improbable that anything is now left of the most ancient period at that site, as the conditions in the Delta are so very different from those obtaining in Upper Egypt. There, at Hierakonpolis, and at el-Kab on the opposite bank of the Nile, the sites of the ancient cities Nekhen and Nekheb, the excavators have been very successful. The work was carried out by Messrs. Quibell and Green, in the years 1891-9. Prehistoric burials were found on the hills near by, but the larger portion of the antiquities were recovered from the temple-ruins, and date back to the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, exactly the time when the kings of Hierakonpolis first conquered the kingdom of Buto and founded the united Egyptian monarchy.